An Unintentional Sleepover
by yellowcrayon7
Summary: Just another fluffy Spuffy one-shot. Buffy gets hurt on patrol, but luckily Spike is there to help.


Buffy sauntered through the cemetery, stake hanging limply from her hand. She sighed. No vampires tonight, not a single one. She had almost completed a fruitless circuit of the grave yard when she heard a rustling in some nearby bushes. Buffy stopped, edging closer with her stake held high.

A familiar peroxide-soaked figure launched itself out of a bush flailing wildly to keep off the thorny branches.

"Bloody hell!" he swore at the bush, then turned and almost ran into Buffy.

"Could you be any less stealthy?" she said, lowering the stake.

Spike stepped back, still angry, "Well, yeah, probably. It's those bloody thorns, they get me all the time…" He brushed off his duster.

Buffy rolled her eyes and began to walk away.

"Wait!" he called, jogging to keep up with her. "I was looking for you."

She gave him a supercilious glare as he continued, "To, uh, patrol, you know. I hear this is a big time for creepy crawlies. Thought I could lend a hand, and I could use a good spot of violence."

Buffy sighed. "Whatever. Just don't get in the way, and be quiet!"

They proceeded silently until Buffy stopped suddenly and held up a hand. Not ten feet away, a nasty looking armored demon was conversing with two vamps. She motioned to Spike to take the vampires and pulled out a long knife.

"One… two… three… GO!" The two sprang from behind a tree and charged at the three. Spike took on one vamp as Buffy clashed with the demon, finally finding a weak spot. It collapsed to the ground.

The other vamp leapt on her back, knocking her to the ground, and Spike watched helplessly in a headlock as she struggled. He threw the vamp to the ground and dusted him on a broken tree branch, but by then the vamp had thrown Buffy into a grave quite hard, and she lay crumpled and motionless.

"Buffy!" he cried, picking up her discarded stake and stabbing the vampire in the back as he approached her limp form.

It was quiet. "Slayer?" Spike said tentatively, stepping towards her. "Er… you alright?"

He knelt next to her and rolled her onto her back. There was a painful looking gash across her forehead. Spike weighed his options for a moment. He could take her home, but the Scoobies would find some way to blame him and he didn't want Dawn to see her sister like this. A hospital would no doubt anger Buffy, so the only other option was his own crypt.

Spike tenderly lifted the girl off the ground honeymoon style, resting her head against his forearm. He was momentarily surprised by how light she was. He carried her in this fashion all the way to his humble abode. After some tight scrapes getting down the ladder, he laid her down on his own bed and went for the medical supplies.

Spike's first aid kit consisted of essentially a few old rags and a bottle of strong alcohol. He cleaned the wound as quickly and properly as he could, and left the rest up to slayer healing powers. Settling down in his favorite armchair with the bottle of whiskey and a copy of Rolling Stone magazine, he waited for the slayer to stir.

After a while, he knelt next to her, brushing her hair out of her face with tender, hesitant fingers. Spike was awed by the peaceful innocence of her face, like a sleeping child.

At that moment, Buffy moaned and blinked open her eyes, and he withdrew his hand and turned away, trying to appear unconcerned.

"Wha—Spike?" she murmured, disoriented. The familiar smell of cigarettes and must hung thick in the cool air, and she knew that the bleached vamp had taken her back to his crypt.

Buffy tried to sit up, shaking off the dizzy pounding in her head. A gentle hand on her shoulder pushed her back into the bed. Buffy sighed at the sight of Spike hovering over her.

"Just sit back for a sec, love, it'll be alrigh'," he said with a genuine concern that threw Buffy off for a moment. "You're only a bit disoriented. You'll live." He held out the whiskey, and Buffy hesitantly accepted it. She propped herself up and took a long swig, hoping to douse some of the throbbing in her head.

Buffy handed the booze back. "What, um, happened, exactly?"

"Nasty run in with some old pals. You got a little knocked around, well, knocked out, actually. Thought I'd better fix you up." He held aloft the bloodied rag and grinned.

She rolled her eyes, sitting up further as the grogginess cleared. "So you took me here? I have a house, you know. And we actually keep soap there, too."

Spike chuckled. "Are you serious? Can't exactly go waltzing into the Summers' residence with a comatose slayer and expect not to get turned into a toad or blasted up by an AK-47 or what have you. I'm not exactly the most welcome visitor these days. You of all people should know that."

Buffy's face fell at the reference to inhospitable behavior. "Listen, I'm really sorry about all of that…"

He interrupted, growing more irritated, "But I s'pose the whelp and that commando lover boy of yours aren't going to have any of it. You all gotta get all high horsed on me about your superior souls and all. Alright, so maybe a year ago and I would have left you by that grave to die. But honestly, I'm only trying to help, I swear."

"Spike…"

"Another minute and you would have been looking for a permanent residence in that cemetery. I could have left you."

Buffy sighed angrily, getting fed up with Spike's self-pitying rant. "Maybe you should have."

"What?"

Buffy stood, a foot away from the fuming vamp. "I don't need your help. None of us do."

The dizziness was starting to return, and her vision blurred, but Buffy was determined to look confident and imposing.

"You would have died!"

"And you aren't exactly the person to save me, seeing as you're kind of already dead!" She paused for breath, the world spinning a bit. "It's just, it would make my job a lot easier if you didn't tag along everywhere." Buffy felt herself sway a bit, and felt lightheaded, whispering, "You should have just left me." She turned, feeling the world fall away.

Spike saw the irate slayer begin to collapse and rushed forward, looping his arm around her lithe waist before she could hit the ground. "It's alrigh'… I gotcha…"

Buffy blinked a bit. "Spike?"

"Yeah, love?"

"I'm sorry. Thanks for not letting me die."

"Anytime, pet." He lifted her onto the bed, draping a blanket over her wilted form. " 'Night, love," Spike whispered, stroking her hair.

" 'Night."

Her eyes drooped closed. When Spike awoke the next morning, his slayer was gone. Now, the morning sun separated them, but that night he had a feeling she would be back.


End file.
